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Homeowners would be handed a licence to kill burglars by a Tory government. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling raised the election stakes on crime by promising law-abiding citizens extra rights to defend themselves. If the Tories win the election, he said, they would tear up the law which lets householders use only 'reasonable force' to defend their families against intruders. The move comes amid public outrage at the 30-month sentence handed last week to Munir Hussain, who chased and beat a member of a gang who had held his family at knifepoint in their home. Mr Grayling said homeowners should...

CHINA "hijacked'' the Copenhagen summit by blocking a legally-binding treaty, Britain's Climate Change Secretary David Miliband said. China vetoed attempts to give legal force to the accord reached at the United Nations climate summit. It also blocked an agreement on reductions in global emissions... "This was a chaotic process dogged by procedural games,'' The summit set a commitment to limit global warming to 2C but did not spell out the important global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 that were the key to holding down temperatures. It also promised $100 billion for poor nations that risked bearing the brunt of...

Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset al-Megrahi's health is deteriorating, according to a Libyan hospital source. The 57-year-old arrived at the hospital on Saturday coughing and vomiting, the statement said. "A scan has shown a worsening of the disease which has spread more than before," it added.

A Muslim chef who lost a claim of religious discrimination against Scotland Yard after complaining he was forced to cook sausages and bacon faces a legal bill of more than £75,000. Hasanali Khoja accused the Metropolitan Police of failing to consider his Islamic beliefs when he was asked to handle pork products as a catering manager at a police station. The £23,000-a-year chef claimed suggestions by his bosses that he should wear gloves and use tongs left him 'stressed and humiliated'...But Mr Khoja, 62, lost his claim in May after a police employee told an employment tribunal how she saw...

Wild boar, the European eagle owl, the Monk parakeet and 60 other species have been added to the list of non-native species that pose a threat to Britain's indigenous animals. The Chinese water deer, the snow goose and 13 other birds, the slipper limpet and seven other invertebrates, 35 plants including two kinds of rhododendron, and two types of algae have also been included on the list, created jointly by the Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs and the Welsh Assembly Government. In a statement about the additions, invasive, non-native species were described as “one of the greatest threats...

The head of the UN's climate change panel - Dr Rajendra Pachauri - is accused of making a fortune from his links with 'carbon trading' companies, Christopher Booker and Richard North write. No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007. Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the world’s top climate scientist”), as a former...

How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles ... Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period.

Scotland Yard has warned businesses in London to expect a Mumbai-style attack on the capital. In a briefing in the City of London 12 days ago, a senior detective from SO15, the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism command, said: “Mumbai is coming to London.” The detective said companies should anticipate a shooting and hostage-taking raid “involving a small number of gunmen with handguns and improvised explosive devices”. The warning — the bluntest issued by police — has underlined an assessment that a terrorist cell may be preparing an attack on London early next year.

A former soldier who was given a suspended sentence after handing a sawn-off shotgun to police believes his actions merited an award instead. Paul Clarke, 27, of Merstham, Redhill, was convicted of possessing a firearm in November and sentenced earlier. Reading Crown Court heard Clarke found a bin liner containing a shotgun in March and was arrested when he handed it in four days later. The judge told Clarke he should have asked police to come straight away. Judge Christopher Critchlow said the minimum sentence for possessing a firearm was normally five years, but it was a "highly unusual case"...

I take it all back. Copenhagen was worth it, after all – if only for the sphincter-bursting rage its supposed failure has caused among our libtard watermelon chums. (That’s watermelon, as in: green on the outside, red on the inside). As Damian reports, on Twitter they’re all planning to cleanse Mother Gaia of their polluting presence Jonestown-style. The Great Moonbat is sounding more unhinged than ever: "Goodbye Africa, goodbye south Asia; goodbye glaciers and sea ice, coral reefs and rainforest. It was nice knowing you. Not that we really cared. The governments which moved so swiftly to save the banks...

Russian analysts accuse Britain’s Meteorological Office of cherry-picking Russian temperature data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures. Is Copenhagen rooted in a single tree in Siberia? Michael Mann, a Penn State meteorologist, wrote in Friday’s Washington Post that “stolen” e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit still don’t alter the evidence for climate change. Mann, a creator of the discredited hockey-stick graph used in reports from the U.N.‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to show man-made warming, attacks climate skeptics, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, saying they “confuse the public.”

Christian Teacher Lost Her Job After Being Told Praying For Sick Girl 'Was Bullying' By JONATHAN PETRE 20th December 2009 Distraught: Olive Jones said her dismissal 'was like a bad dream that had come true' [Pic in URL] A devout Christian teacher has lost her job after discussing her faith with a mother and her sick child and offering to pray for them. Olive Jones, a 54-year-old mother of two, who taught maths to children too ill to attend school, was dismissed following a complaint from the girl’s mother. She was visiting the home of the child when she spoke...

COPENHAGEN Accord? Accordion, more like – a concertinaed agreement with carbon emissions restrictions unspecified, no legal sanctions and no international consensus. Altogether, a very satisfactory fiasco. But what better venue to devise a climate Danegeld than Copenhagen? Western taxpayers are to be mugged for $30bn over three years, then for $100bn in 2020 (we shall see about that). Hans Christian Andersen was outclassed in his home town last week, in the fabrication of fairy tales. The Brothers Grim – Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri – are possessed of imaginations so rich as to dwarf the inventive powers of conventional storytellers....

Scotland Yard has warned businesses in London to expect a Mumbai-style attack on the capital. In a briefing in the City of London 12 days ago, a senior detective from SO15, the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism command, said: “Mumbai is coming to London.” The detective said companies should anticipate a shooting and hostage-taking raid “involving a small number of gunmen with handguns and improvised explosive devices”.

SNIPPET: "Security sources said concerns had been raised by "chatter" on a prominent jihadist website two weeks ago."

Drivers have been urged to avoid part of the M20 in Kent after the closure of the Channel Tunnel caused tailbacks. Four Eurostar trains broke down in the tunnel due to the extreme cold, leaving more than 2,000 people trapped and two trains without heating and lighting. Kent Police urged drivers to avoid the Folkestone and Dover areas of the M20.

In a submission to a consultation on relaxing the rules on assisted suicide - which ends today - a coaliton of five disabled groups, said that “to see suicide as the right solution is to abandon hope. Severely ill and terminally ill people do no deserve society to give up on them.” The group, which is lead by Baroness Campbell, accused others who were pushing for the change as “seeking to change the law by the back door by creating the impression that those who assist in a suicide will be immune from prosecution”. Over the past 10 years 100...

Our Human Rights Culture Has Now Become A Tyranny The Supreme Court this week effectively made the Jewish religion illegal. Charles Moore This Government has exalted secular human rights over all belief systems Strange things happen in the English law, but I have seldom read a stranger opening to a judgment than the following, handed down this week by Lord Philips of Worth Matravers, the President of the Supreme Court. "The seventh chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy records the following instructions given by Moses to the people of Israel, after delivering the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai," Lord Philips...

December 19, 2009 Woman Who Provided The Inspiration for Miss Moneypenny Dies Aged 88 Dame "Paddy" Ridsdale, left, with Lois Maxwell, who played Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary, in 14 James Bond films [Pics in URL] The secret service secretary who inspired the character of Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond stories has died aged 88. Dame Victoire “Paddy” Ridsdale once described Ian Fleming as “definitely James Bond in his mind”. Dame Paddy was definitely Miss Moneypenny — or at least a part of her. Fleming and Dame Paddy, then plain Paddy Bennett, were colleagues in the wartime Naval Intelligence Department:...

Global Warming: Russian analysts accuse Britain's Meteorological Office of cherry-picking Russian temperature data to "hide the decline" in global temperatures. Is Copenhagen rooted in a single tree in Siberia? Michael Mann, a Penn State meteorologist, wrote in Friday's Washington Post that "stolen" e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit still don't alter the evidence for climate change. Mann, a creator of the discredited hockey-stick graph used in reports from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to show man-made warming, attacks climate skeptics, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, saying they "confuse the public." Chutzpah has been...

A suspected al Qaeda-inspired cell was caught filming potential terrorist targets, police claimed today. Senior officers said two Algerian brothers may have been employed to prepare the ground for an atrocity in London or at major regional shopping centres. The footage was released today in response to a backlash against police for stopping and searching innocent people taking photographs at tourist hotspots. But the move could backfire as critics will point to the fact that the men involved in the alleged plot were not charged with terrorism offences.

A 15-year-old British girl murdered by her father in so-called honour killing was reportedly pregnant at the time of her death. Tulay Goren disappeared in January 1999, shortly after her father told his eight-year-old son to kiss his sister goodbye as he would never see her again. Her body was never found. Mehmet Goren, 49, was yesterday handed a life sentence for killing his daughter because of her relationship with an older man who belonged to a different branch of Islam. As detectives admitted police had ignored “tell-tale signs� before the murder, an old school friend of Tulay’s told the...

Accountant Jailed Indefinitely For Throwing Acid On Lawyers A former accountant with an 'obsessional hatred' of the legal profession has been jailed indefinitely for an acid attack on a team of lawyers. 17 Dec 2009 Ashok Mahajan, 55, [Pic in URL] showered a barrister, solicitor and pupil with the contents of a bottle of hydrochloric acid after his race discrimination claim was thrown out. Trainee barrister Lucy Colter suffered a burned eye as corrosive fluid dribbled down her face and melted through her tights. Former accountant Mahajan had a decade-long history of courtroom outbursts including an incident where he threw...

Two years ago the government pledged that all veterans would have the right to fast-track NHS treatment if their conditions were service-related, but has that promise been kept?

12/17/2009 - ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England (AFNS) -- One local Boy Scout's vision, some brand new equipment locked away in a store room for more than 13 years, a passion for fitness, and love for the RAF Lakenheath community. This is the recipe for the base's new outdoor fitness stations and for a member of local Boy Scout Troop 219 being one step closer to Eagle Scout. Joshua Kent, 15, took on the project of the erecting 15 fitness stations along the base's running trail with the help of his family, a few active duty Airmen and some of...

Think of a space agency and what comes to mind is probably the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Moon landing achievements. The UK government's decision to have its own NASA may thus look like a step towards a bold national future in the cosmos, but reality is likely to be much closer to the ground. The UK government's 10 Decemberannouncement that it would form an executive agency for space comes after years of reviews about what more the country could do for spaceflight, and the government has an enthusiastic space champion in its minister of state for science...

The BBC has apologised after complaints about an online debate which asked: "Should homosexuals face execution?" in response to proposed anti-gay legislation in Uganda. Critics flooded the British broadcaster's website after it launched the provocative debate ahead of a World Service Africa Have Your Say feature. The headline question asking if gays should face execution was later changed to: "Should Uganda debate gay laws?" and the BBC World Service admitted the original version overstepped the mark. "The original headline on our website was, in hindsight, too stark. We apologise for any offence it caused," the director of BBC World Service,...

Twiggy's Photoshopped Olay Ads Banned in England [Pic in URL] by Jennifer Romolini, Shine staff Perhaps we should start calling 2009 the year of the airbrush. The latest Photoshop scandal involves not an emaciated model nor a bizarrely-retouched actress on the cover of a fashion magazine, but instead a 60-year-old icon with not enough crows' feet for anyone's liking. Let's catch you up: Last summer, beauty company Olay debuted its Definity eye cream campaign depicting model Twiggy looking far younger, smoother, and firmer than her then 59 years should suggest. The '60s fashion star appeared virtually wrinkle-free in the ads...

The Christmas travel plans of more than a million people were rescued after the High Court granted British Airways an injunction blocking a 12 day strike by cabin crew. The airline had mounted a legal challenge after a ballot among members of the trade union Unite showed overwhelming support for a strike in a dispute over BA's cost-cutting plans. Had the strike taken place, the walkout would have crippled the airline over one of the busiest periods of the year, costing the company tens of millions of pounds. It would also have left passengers scrambling for the few remaining available...

Everyone seems to be waiting for someone to break the dam. And everyone knows who that someone is. Because of the size and weight of the United States, and the moral power invested in the current president, it is Barack Obama, and Barack Obama alone, who can rescue the climate negotiations from the dismal bickering into which they have slumped. To save him the trouble, I have written the speech that could turn the talks around. "All those of us who are elected to high office dream of a time when we might do what is right, rather than what...

New guidelines on assisted suicide prosecutions issued following the case of Debbie Purdy, the multiple sclerosis sufferer, will ‘legalise killing’ a group of MPs and peers have warned. The All Party Parliamentary Group on Dying Well has written to Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, protesting about interim guidelines he was forced to draw up after Mrs Purdy won a legal challenge demanding that he make explicit the grounds on which those who assist someone to die would be charged with a criminal offence. The group, who include Ruth Kelly and Lord Patten, Labour and Conservative former education secretaries,...

Thousands of British holidaymakers today faced a battle to return home for Christmas after waking up in hotels around the world to discover that their flights had been cancelled. Flyglobespan, Scotland’s largest airline, has gone bust, leaving about 5,000 travellers stranded abroad and 800 staff out of a job. More than 100,000 people have booked Christmas breaks with the company, which went into administration last night. Tens of thousands will receive no compensation for the loss. (snip) About 117,000 people who had booked flights will not now get them. Of those, 27,000 who had booked package holidays should get their...

A bizarre accident on a moving walkway in a British shopping centre has almost killed a four-year-old boy and left his face temporarily discoloured. Darren Webb said his son Stevie Webb looks "like an extra out of that new Avatar film" after his head became trapped between two travelators at the Sainsbury's Savacentre in Colliers Wood, south London. Stevie was playing near the walkways when his jacket became snagged — violently snapping his head backwards. He was not breathing when his mother hit the emergency stop button but later regained consciousness. While Stevie is expected to make a full recovery,...

Mehmet Goren, the father of 15-year-old Muslim schoolgirl Tulay Goren, has been convicted of her murder in a family "honour killing" in London. Tulay, who had come to Britain from the Kurdish region of Turkey, was drugged, tortured and then killed by her father Mehmet Goren, over her relationship with an older man of whom Mehment Goren and his relations did not approve. Although Tulay’s body has never been found, her father Mehmet Goren, 49, was found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey after a 10-week trial. He was also convicted of conspiracy to murder Halil Unal, Tulay’s former...

A London court of appeals ruled Tuesday against a Christian registrar who refused to conduct a same-sex civil union ceremony because it violated her religious beliefs. Lillian Ladele claimed she suffered discrimination, including being ridiculed and bullied, while working for the Islington City Council. Ladele had worked for the council for nearly 16 years, but did not experience discrimination until after she refused to perform the gay civil union. Ladele’s attorney said she never wanted to undermine the rights of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender community. But human rights laws don’t only protect members of the LGBT...

A ‘sharp decline’ in religious belief has seen the number of people who consider themselves Christian drop to half. According to a new academic study, an increasing majority are described as the ‘fuzzy faithful’ who have only a vague belief in God. These do not belong to a particular denomination or attend services. Nearly 4,500 people were questioned for the 2008 British Social Attitudes survey, which revealed 37 per cent of Britons do not believe in God – compared to 35 per cent who do. While 50 per cent of respondents now call themselves Christian, down from 66 per cent...

Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages. Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North) A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997...

cientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers - skin and lung - a move they say could revolutionise cancer care. Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, say the Wellcome Trust team.

BREAKING NEWS: Two Boys, Aged 10, Charged With Raping Eight-Year-Old By Daily Mail Reporter 16th December 2009 The pair will attend Uxbridge Magistates Court tomorrow Two 10-year-old boys have tonight been charged with the rape of an eight-year-old girl in west London. The alleged sex attack relates to an incident in a park off College Way, Hayes, west London, in October last year. Scotland Yard said the pair would appear before magistrates in Uxbridge on Thursday. Police officers were called in by the girl's family after she returned home and said she had been raped. A Met police spokesman said...

A climber who was warned he faced the amputation of a limb has had his leg saved by a new stem cell technique. Andrew Kent broke his leg so badly while rock climbing in the Lake District that traditional surgery failed. For the first time in Britain, doctors then used his own stem cells to heal the bones in a technique they believe could revolutionise orthopaedic operations. "I've got a good prognosis. I'm very pleased with the way things have turned out," Mr Kent told Sky News. He and his son were climbing in the Langdale Pikes earlier this year...

Mothers screamed abuse at nursery paedophile Vanessa George yesterday as she began a prison sentence that could see her freed after only seven years. One called the punishment 'a joke' and stormed out of court in disgust. Another lunged towards the dock and threatened to kill her. The dramatic scenes came as George, 39, was given an indeterminate sentence for 'plumbing new depths of depravity' by abusing children in her care. ..... The scant detail she gave police may never enable them to identify which children she assaulted while looking after babies and toddlers at Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth....

To the millions of us struggling to pay for Christmas this year, Dean Evans and his teenage girlfriend Catherine Scott have a simple message - save up. After all, they've managed to set aside £1,000 so they and their eight children can enjoy the festive season together. So pleased are they with their budgeting that they feel qualified to hand out advice to the rest of us - advice which might be better received if their Christmas piggy-bank wasn't full of state handouts. The couple, who live in a four-bedroom house paid for by the council, managed to save the...

Cheques are likely to be abolished following a vote today to end the 350-year-old means of payment. The Payments Council is due to decide whether to abolish the national cheque clearing system, a move which would effectively make all cheques redundant. The change would be phased in over several years and completed by 2018. Despite growing reliance on debit cards, almost 4 million cheques are written every day in Britain. However, this is still two-thirds less than two decades ago, and numbers are expected to continue to decline, dropping to 1.6 million by 2018. The move is likely to anger...

A man who faced amputation after he broke a leg while rock climbing spoke today of a revolutionary new stem cell technique which fused it back together again. Andrew Kent's right leg broke in five places when a large boulder fell on him as he climbed with his son in the Langdale Pikes in the Lake District in April. He was taken to the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle where he underwent three operations to pin the bones back together.

(IsraelNN.com) British Foreign Minister David Miliband phoned Opposition Head Tzipi Livni Tuesday and expressed “shock” at the arrest warrant that was issued against her by a British court. Livni reportedly told him in reply that she does not see the matter as personal but as something that concerns the entire state of Israel, and the ability to continue to act against threats that Israel and Britain face together.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called Kadima head Tzipi Livni and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Tuesday evening in an apparent effort to prevent the diplomatic crisis stemming from a British arrest warrant issued against Livni from spinning completely out of control. Israeli officials react to Livni's UK arrest warrant According to a statement put out by Livni's office, Miliband expressed his "shock" at the arrest warrant and promised to work immediately to ensure that a similar occurrence would not happen in the future against Livni or other Israeli leaders. Miliband told Lieberman that the warrant was "completely unacceptable."

Mystery surrounded the Lockerbie bomber last night after he could not be reached at his home or in hospital. Libyan officials could say nothing about the whereabouts of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, and his Scottish monitors could not contact him by telephone. They will try again to speak to him today but if they fail to reach him, the Scottish government could face a new crisis. Under the terms of his release from jail, the bomber cannot change his address or leave Tripoli, and must keep in regular communication with East Renfrewshire Council. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic...

A millionaire businessman who fought back against a knife-wielding burglar was jailed for two-and-a-half years yesterday. But his attacker has been spared prison. Munir Hussain, 53, and his family were tied up and told to lie on the floor by career criminal Waled Salem, who burst into his home with two other masked men. Mr Hussain escaped and attacked Salem with a metal pole and a cricket bat. But yesterday it was the businessman who was starting a prison sentence for his 'very violent revenge'. Jailing him, Judge John Reddihough said some members of the public would think that 56-year-old...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/12/uk-jihadists-who-plotted-to-blow-up-shopping-center-had-been-granted-permission-to-work-as-security.html UK: Jihadists who plotted to blow up shopping center had been granted permission to work as security guards Why not? To disallow them would have been "Islamophobic." "Manchester terror suspects cleared to work as guards," by David Leppard for The Sunday Times, December 13: Ten members of a suspected Islamist terror cell, said by MI5 to be plotting to blow up a shopping centre and a nightclub in Manchester, had been granted permission by the Home Office to work as security guards in Britain. The Pakistani students -- who were never charged...

Britain's relations with Israel have been plunged into crisis after the Jewish state angrily denounced an attempt in London to arrest its former foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. The Israeli foreign ministry summoned Tom Phillips, the British ambassador to Tel Aviv, to protest at her treatment and give warning that diplomatic ties had been badly damaged.